Take-Two makes Q3 profit

Posted by Chris Holmes at 5:23pm on September 3rd, 2010

Take-Two has confirmed that they made a profit in the third fiscal quarter that ended on July 31st, 2010. The company managed $354.1 million in sales, which is up from $94.9 million for the same quarter last year. Net income clocked in at $6 million, which is up from a loss of $56 million last year.

Red Dead Redemption has been credited with achieving most of these numbers. The game has now shipped 6.9 million units. Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City, GTA IV, NBA 2K10 and Borderlands also managed to contribute. The company expects to be profitable for the full fiscal year with sales of $1.05 to $1.1 billion.

“Our results for the third quarter and our expectations for the remainder of fiscal 2010 reflect significant progress toward achieving our goals,” said Take-Two CEO Ben Feder. “First, we expect to be profitable in a fiscal year without a major multi-platform Grand Theft Auto release. Second, Take-Two’s broad array of hit franchises highlights our ability to deliver a diverse product line. Third, Red Dead Redemption has shown that our creative teams can produce multiple mega-hit franchises.”

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Gaming Culture | Industry News | News | Rockstar Games | Take-Two

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GTA: Chinatown Wars HD heading to iPad next week

Posted by Chris Holmes at 12:35pm on September 2nd, 2010

Rockstar has announced that Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars HD will be released on the iPad next Thursday (9th September) for £5.99. The game now has over 50 missions, some more side activities and the ability to listen to your iTunes library in-game. Chinatown Wars has been about the block a bit, having been released on the DS, PSP and the iPhone before stopping off on the iPad.

News | Rockstar Games | iPad

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Red Dead Redemption Liars and Cheats Pack dated

Posted by Chris Holmes at 4:17pm on August 27th, 2010

Rockstar has confirmed that the Liars and Cheats Pack for Red Dead Redemption will be released on the PS3 and 360 on 21st September. It will cost £7.99 on the PlayStation Network and 800 Allards on the Xbox Live Marketplace. The pack will now include content that was originally supposed to be in the “Free Roam Pack”.

That pack was supposed to be free, but it had to be merged into the paid for content because the “platform networks’ restrictions on numbers of free packs we can give away”. The industry has recently been privately bemoaning Microsoft’s anti-free DLC policy behind the scenes, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change anytime soon.

Regardless, Liars and Cheats comes with a new competitive multiplayer mode called “Stronghold”. In it, players take turns as attack and defence teams fighting to keep/assault a stronghold (surprisingly). Also, expect some multiplayer horse races, multiplayer poker and Liar’s Dice, as well as a new explosive rifle, seven new gang hideouts and four new Hunting Grounds.

Furthermore, the DLC gives you 15 story mode characters as multiplayer character skins. There will also be new achievements/trophies to obtain.

News | PlayStation 3 | PlayStation Network | Rockstar Games | Xbox 360 | Xbox Live Marketplace

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Red Dead Redemption bans coming tomorrow

Posted by Chris Holmes at 5:34pm on August 23rd, 2010

Rockstar has reminded us that they will be instigating bans across both Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network for all those that have hacked Red Dead Redemption game saves. The company will not be banning people who used exploits to grind experience points. Apparently, they can tell if someone has hacked their saves or not to obtain dodgy scores. They will also be removing hackers from the leaderboards.

To avoid the banhammer, Rockstar has said that gamers should delete their hacked saves. Players would be allowed to keep their achievements/trophies. Any cheats earned through the Rockstar Social Club will be unlocked when creating new saves whilst connected to Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network. The same goes for pre-order items. After you’ve deleted your save, you have to go online before tomorrow. People with single-player saves will have to re-play the game whilst connected to the net until they get the safehouse at the MacFarlane ranch. Players with multiplayer saves have to play one full game online or do a Gang Hideout.

News | PlayStation 3 | Rockstar Games | Xbox 360

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Red Dead Redemption patch released

Posted by Chris Holmes at 12:21pm on August 5th, 2010

Rockstar has released a patch they hope will stop griefing in Red Dead Redemption’s multiplayer mode. Now in Free Roam, if anyone gets a kill streak of six or more they will become a “Public Enemy”. This means they’ll be slapped with a $1000 bounty. Also if you’re killed three times within 80 seconds of respawning, the game will ask you if you want to spawn somewhere else.

There are some other fixes too, including: swappable shoulder buttons, you can save games with cheats enabled and you can also have two horses (one to ride and one to follow). Drunken stupors are no longer accidentally permanent and sliding doors apparently won’t attach to the heads of bandana wearers anymore.

News | PlayStation 3 | PlayStation Network | Rockstar Games | Xbox 360 | Xbox Live

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Red Dead Redemption Legends and Killer DLC coming next week

Posted by Chris Holmes at 8:22pm on August 4th, 2010

Rockstar has confirmed that the Legends and Killers downloadable content for Red Dead Redemption will be released next week on both the Xbox Live Marketplace and the PlayStation Network. It will set you back either 800 Allards or $10. It’s a multiplayer-focused content pack, adding nine multiplayer maps, a Tomahawk, eight Red Dead Revolver characters to play as and new achievements/trophies.

News | PlayStation 3 | PlayStation Network | PlayStation Store | Rockstar Games | Xbox 360 | Xbox Live | Xbox Live Marketplace

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Rockstar fires Red Dead Redemption studio staff

Posted by Chris Holmes at 4:35pm on July 15th, 2010

Rockstar has confirmed that it has sacked 40 people from its San Diego studio. The news comes following the release of one of the studio’s best games; Red Dead Redemption. Remaining staff are working on Red Dead DLC. The game has sold five million copies, but it doesn’t look like Rockstar is content with the dosh and has resorted to gaming’s current money grabber with their future DLC – zombies. We hope those fired get a new job somewhere soon. It shouldn’t be difficult for them, having had a part in one of the greatest titles of this generation.

Industry News | News | Rockstar Games

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New Red Dead Redemption DLC confirmed

Posted by Chris Holmes at 6:03pm on July 8th, 2010

Rockstar has announced some new downloadable content for Red Dead Redemption. There will be four DLC packs on the PSN and Xbox Live over the next few months. Three of which will set you back $9.99 on PSN and 800 Allards on Xbox Live.

The first pack is called the Legends and Killers Pack. It’ll be released at the beginning of August, and includes nine new multiplayer maps. There will be eight new multiplayer characters, with some from Red Dead Revolver making an appearance. The pack also includes a new projectile weapon, the Tomahawk. It will have its own challenges for single player and multiplayer. Expect new achievements and trophies.

The second pack is called the Liars and Cheats Pack. It will include an Attack and Defend multiplayer mode, with more challenges. There will be some new multiplayer horse races and will let you play as the heroes and villains of Red Dead Redemption with eight new multiplayer characters. The pack will also let you play Liars Dice and Poker online. It’ll also include another new weapon, the Explosive Rifle. The release date for this DLC hasn’t been confirmed yet.

Next up is the Free Roam Pack, which will feature some new Free Roam challenges. There will also be some new action areas and defensive placements, as well as posse scoring and leaderboards. Apparently, there will be some new anti-griefing measures for Free Roam too.

The last of the four is the Undead Nightmare Pack, where ghost towns and cemeteries come alive in a West gone wrong. It will include a new single-player adventure, with some new challenges and quests. There will be eight new multiplayer zombie characters, with some new animals and new dynamic events. It’ll be released in the autumn.

News | PlayStation 3 | PlayStation Network | PlayStation Store | Rockstar Games | Xbox 360 | Xbox Live | Xbox Live Marketplace

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Some interesting Red Dead Redemption stats

Posted by Chris Holmes at 3:34pm on July 5th, 2010

GameSpy has gathered some interesting Red Dead Redemption stats in a handy infographic. The funniest one is that someone was murdered in-game every six minutes during the first two weeks of the game’s release. The total number of murders is at a steady 132,904,068. Every Red Dead Redemption player has apparently been run over five times and there were 15,072,596 executions in those two weeks, not far off George Bush’s bodycount. In-game soldier deaths reached 13,250,327, which coincidentally, is a figure equal to the Soviet and American deaths in World War II combined.

5,773,917 hats were shot off during duels (you guys don’t like hats, it seems), $3bn has been spent in-game, 8.6 litres of alcohol has been drunk on average by characters and you lot have travelled 300,000 miles by train, which equates to travelling the world 12 times. Deer were the most hunted animal, with 28 million killed. Gamers played RDR for 14 million hours in the two weeks, equal to 3710 years. We do not want to think about how we contributed to all this, having been killed and drunk both in-game and out of the game during the opening two weeks.

News | PlayStation 3 | PlayStation Network | Rockstar Games | Xbox 360 | Xbox Live

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Red Dead Redemption Review

Posted by Matt Purslow at 10:33pm on June 17th, 2010

Quite frankly, if you’re looking for consumer advice on Red Dead Redemption, there’s very little point reading this review. The game has a little yellow box with an ‘R’ in it in the bottom corner of the packaging. That’s pretty much all you need to know. This is a Rockstar game, and this should leave anyone with no doubt as to the level of quality Red Dead Redemption revels in.

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PlayStation 3 | Reviews | Rockstar Games | Xbox 360

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GTA IV sells over 17 million copies

Posted by Chris Holmes at 4:03pm on June 9th, 2010

Take-Two has announced that GTA IV has sold over 17 million units worldwide. The information came out during a Q2 earnings release from Take-Two today. GTA IV was released back in April 2008 on the PS3 and 360, and the DLC and PC releases have seen the title get long legs at retail.

News | PC | PlayStation 3 | Rockstar Games | Take-Two | Xbox 360

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Red Dead Redemption hits 5 million units shipped

Posted by Chris Holmes at 12:56pm on June 9th, 2010

Take-Two have confirmed that more than 5 million copies of Red Dead Redemption have been shipped to retailers over North America and Europe since the game was released on May 18th. The game has been top of the UK charts since its release and seems to be doing well for itself.

News | PlayStation 3 | Rockstar Games | Take-Two | Xbox 360

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Red Dead Redemption patch coming, Co-Op DLC dated

Posted by Chris Holmes at 12:47pm on June 4th, 2010

Rockstar has announced that a title update for Red Dead Redemption is hitting next week. The patch will fix issues with multiplayer connectivity and the Mo Van Barr bounty, which many users have complained of being glitched. It’ll also fix some other strange goings on, but Rockstar hasn’t unveiled the other specific issues the update might address. Rockstar is releasing the Expert Hunter and Savvy Merchant outfits with their related challenges later this summer for free as a token of their “appreciation for your patience and in gratitude to all the Red Dead fans out there”.

The company has also announced that they will be releasing the Outlaws To The End Co-Op Mission Pack for the game for free on June 22nd on the Xbox 360, and June 23rd on the PS3. The DLC has six new co-op multiplayer missions for 2-4 players.

News | PlayStation 3 | PlayStation Network | PlayStation Store | Rockstar Games | Xbox 360 | Xbox Live | Xbox Live Marketplace

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Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars Lite released for iPhone and iPod Touch

Posted by Chris Holmes at 4:58pm on May 26th, 2010

Rockstar Games has released Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars Lite for the iPhone and iPod Touch on the app store. The release is basically a free demo of the full £6 version, and contains three levels of the game.

App Store | News | Rockstar Games | iPhone

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Rockstar working on Red Dead Redemption multiplayer patch

Posted by Chris Holmes at 2:58pm on May 20th, 2010

Rockstar has confirmed they are working on a patch to fix some problems with the multiplayer mode in Red Dead Redemption. Since the game was released in the US on Tuesday, players have found some glitches, such as invisible guns, hats, cougars and horses. Rockstar released a small update earlier this week to sort out system link issues.

“We’re aware of the issues some people are experiencing on multiplayer and we’re working hard to fix them,” Rockstar said. “If you’re having issues please email RDRSupportteam@rockstargames.com. We are also actively on the forums helping people with any questions they may have about the game.”

Here’s a video of the invisible horse glitch:

News | PlayStation 3 | Rockstar Games | Xbox 360

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